FREEI AM BRIAN WILSON: THE GENIUS BEHIND THE BEACH BOYS EBOOK Brian Wilson | 320 pages | 11 Oct 2016 | Hodder & Stoughton General Division | 9781444781335 | English | London, United Kingdom Brian Wilson, musical genius behind the Beach Boys | Yorkshire Post Follow Billboard. All rights reserved. With a shuffling gait and wearing jeans, sneakers and a blue plaid shirt that matches his eyes, Brian Wilson I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys at the center of a Hollywood whirlwind. This day, he's been rushing to screenings, giving interviews and posing for photos at a Los Angeles hotel as his new biopic prepares to hit theaters on Friday. That meant re-experiencing some of his highest highs and lowest lows. Paul Dano plays the younger Wilson at perhaps the peak of his creative genius, when he stayed behind from the Beach Boys' world tour to create his opus Pet Sounds. He employed an orchestra, climbed inside a piano to plink its strings with a bobby pin, and incorporated everyday sounds like keys jangling or dogs barking into the songs. But it was such a sonic departure that it caused a rift in the band, which exacerbated an emerging personal crisis for Wilson. He began showing signs of mental illness, hearing cacophonous voices and sounds in his head. Brian Wilson: The Billboard Shoot. John Cusack plays Wilson in the s, a broken man, heavily medicated and terribly insecure, under constant watch by his Svengali-like psychotherapist, Eugene Landy Paul Giamatti. While shopping for a Cadillac, the troubled musician forms an instant connection with saleslady Melinda Ledbetter Elizabeth Bankswho would go on to liberate him from Landy's care and become Wilson's second wife. Director Bill Pohlad interweaves the two narratives, creating a portrait both painful and triumphant. I wanted to know what this guy was all about. Wilson and Ledbetter were involved with the making of the film, spending time and sharing personal stories with the director and his cast. Wilson said he was nervous about the movie and found parts of it upsetting to watch "Some of it was pretty rough"but he also came away inspired - reminded, perhaps, of that feeling of all-encompassing creativity. Already a I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys, Dano learned to play piano for the role and also does his own singing on screen. Though he and Cusack each spent ample time with Wilson, both actors said they gleaned much of their insight into him by listening to his music. Both actors said they were honored to portray such a sensitive, intuitive and creative character, and that spending time with him was its own source of inspiration and light. As for Wilson, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder, he says these days, exercise makes him happy - "I go to a park and walk and walk and walk" - and, of course, music. He's preparing to tour the U. Though he's having an "off period" where he hasn't written for a few months, the year-old knows there's more music in him. It's his language, he said, his means of communication. But with music, I can explain something. Search term. Billboard Pro Subscribe Sign In. Top Artists. I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys Charts. Hot Songs. Billboard Top Videos. Top Articles. By Associated Press. Copied to clipboard. Click to copy. Artists Mentioned. Watch Now. I Am Brian Wilson - Wikipedia It was created by the Beatles ' former press officer Derek Taylor inwho was then employed as the Beach Boys' publicistalthough there are earlier documented expressions of the statement. Taylor frequently called Wilson "genius" as part of a campaign he initiated to rebrand the group and legitimize Wilson as a serious artist on par with the Beatles and Bob Dylan. With the aid of numerous associates in the music industry, Taylor's I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys efforts were integral to the success of the band's album Pet Sounds in England. However, the hype generated for the group's next album, Smilebore a number of unintended consequences for the band's reputation and internal dynamic. Wilson ultimately scrapped Smile and reduced his involvement with the group. Wilson later said that the "genius" branding intensified the pressures of his career and led him to become "a victim of the recording industry". Brian Wilson was responsible for writing or co-writing the Beach Boys ' string of hits in the s, which inspired a number of Los Angeles music industry figures to refer to him as a genius. In the meantime, the Beatles ' former press agent Derek Taylor had left the UK and moved to California, where he started his own public relations company. There could be no more spectacular recommendation. Taylor was quickly assimilated into what was then an expanding coterie of Wilson's worldly-minded friends, musicians, mystics, and business advisers. Brian, in particular, suffered. Van Dyke ParksWilson's lyricist at the time, claimed to have introduced Taylor to Wilson, [19] while biographer David Leaf wrote that it was Bruce Johnston who "set up a meeting for Derek with Brian. Taylor recalled that the "genius" promotion originated "because Brian told me that he thought he was better than most other people believed him to be". After becoming aware of how highly regarded Wilson was to musician friends such as Van Dyke Parks and singer Danny HuttonTaylor wondered why it was not the mainstream consensus, and began "putting it around, making almost a campaign out of it". The campaign promoted Wilson as an exceptional "genius" among pop artists, an idea that Taylor personally believed in. One of the earliest instances of Taylor announcing that Wilson was a genius was in his article titled "Brian Wilson: Whizzkid Behind the Beach Boys". This is Brian Wilson. He is a Beach Boy. Some say he is more. Some say he is a Beach Boy and a genius. This twenty-three-year-old powerhouse not only sings with the famous group, he writes the words and music then arranges, engineers, and produces the disc Even the packaging and design on the record jacket is controlled by the talented Mr. He has often been called "genius", and it's a burden. Pet Sounds was widely influential and raised the band's prestige as an innovative rock group. In May, Taylor and Bruce Johnston traveled to London and arranged listening parties for the album, inviting prestigious musicians including Lennon and McCartney and rock journalists. These journalists subsequently helped promulgate the idea of Wilson as a "pop genius" and of the album's forward-thinking aesthetic. Throughout the summer ofWilson concentrated on finishing the group's next single, " Good Vibrations ". As quoted in interviews, Wilson declared that the group's next album Smile originally called Dumb Angel would "be as much an improvement over [Pet] Sounds as that was over Summer Days ". When asked where he believed music would go, Wilson responded: "White spiritualsI think that's what we're going to hear. Songs of faith. In MayTaylor announced that Smile had been "scrapped" I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys the music press subsequently amplified their romantic depictions of Wilson. Siegel covered Wilson's struggle to overcome the band's surfing image in the US and credited the collapse of Smile to "an obsessive cycle of creation and destruction that threatened not only his career and his fortune but also his marriage, his friendships, his relationships with the Beach Boys and, some of his closest friends worried, his mind". According to academic Kirk Curnett, Siegel's article was "the most instrumental in establishing Brian as mercurial in the broader senses of that term: as an eccentric and erratic artist perilously pursuing the muse instead of blithely serving the masses". Siegel greatly romanticized Wilson and Smileechoing and fostering the pervasive audience view of Wilson as a tortured genius Depicting Wilson in decline, with the non-release of Smile as the most obvious byproduct of mental and creative psychosis Informer band associate David Anderle commented on Siegel's use of the "genius" descriptor. Jules used all that stuff because it always made him feel like he was more important, because he I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys the one doing the interview with this genius. Well, it really turned out, because if he wrote it then it would make him look important, that he was part of the posse or part of the secret or part of the thing. I guess we all do that. We all extend the story, don't we? We all extend the moment. It's satisfying. But what a burden for Brian Wilson later said that he had run out of ideas by "in a conventional sense" and was "about ready to die". I am a I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys of the recording industry. On December 14,Jann Wenner printed an influential article in Rolling Stone that denounced the "genius" label, which he called a "promotional shuck" and a "pointless" attempt to compare Wilson with the Beatles. He I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys "Wilson believed [that he was a genius] and felt obligated to make good of it. It left Wilson in a bind Wilson's bandmates resented that he was singled out as a "genius". He said that Carl was especially bothered by the misconception that the members were "nameless music components in Brian's music machine". By the s, both fans and detractors began to view Wilson as a burned-out acid casualty.